NO ACCIDENTS TODAY!!!

another biggest day!

on thursday, penny had a pants off day, where she wore no bottoms and used the potty all day.  on friday she had a pants off morning, and yesterday we spent a couple of hours at home with no diaper, and then went out to see the bindlestiff family circus perform outdoors at lincoln center.  we had a great time watching the show and then it started pouring!  when we got home, we tried some more no diaper time, and she had an accident but it was no big deal.
this morning* we spent a couple of hours with her running around totally starkers, with a quick break for this:

she also provided me with a costume, and we went trick or treating all around the house.

when alex asked her if she wanted to go out and buy some big girl undies she said YES!
we let her pick out her favorites at the children's place, and then got a few more at target - they were all out of all of the fun stuff - no princesses, fairies, dora, or sesame street.  we did end up getting her some training pants as well.  we changed her into undies right at the mall, and she did great!  we used the bathrooms at several fine retail establishments, then we took her for a haircut.  she fell asleep in her stroller, and i was terrified that she'd have an accident, but she slept for almost two hours, woke up and i took her to the bathroom about half an hour later and all was good!  since we were having such an amazing day already, we decided to watch "toy story".  penny is aware of the characters, but had no idea of the story, and she totally dug it!  she had an accident after the movie, but that was really our fault, as we went straight into family band time without checking in to see if she needed to go.  we put her to bed in training pants, which look TOTALLY RIDICULOUS, but will hopefully get the job done.

so far, so good!


*the first thing she did this morning was "help set the table", which ended up looking like this:

potty training!

penny spent the whole day today with no pants on - and she had no accidents!  i bought her some princess pull ups, which she tried on but is not currently wearing, and some nail stickers, which she is.
this was a very successful first potty training day!

since it would not be so appropriate to post pantsless penny photos, and because there aren't any, here are some pictures i've taken over the past couple of weeks that didn't really merit their own posts.

happy (very belated) father's day!

just because this post is coming late doesn't mean we love the fathers in penny's life any less!  sorry this is so late, everyone!

alex decided that he wanted to go to the bronx zoo for father's day, and since it's one of my very favorite places to go, i quickly agreed!  we got there 5 minutes after the doors opened, and got on the second monorail out of the gate!

we met up with my parents right outside of the monorail, and then penny and alex rode a camel!

we then met up with alex's parents, brother & his girlfriend, and we all ate lunch together.  my parents headed out, we saw a ton more animals, then went to dinner!  it was a really terrific day.  i'm sorry it's taken me a month to blog about it.  to make up for it, here are some adorable animal photos.

blorp

we need your help!

penny keeps asking alex and i if we remember a happening, and neither of us do.  we also don't know who she's talking about.

allie and josh (who are either friends or cousins) and penny were at a museum or a house, and allie put bee oil (maybe honey?) on all of their jackets.  penny insists that alex and i were with her.

does this sound familiar to you at all?  please let me know in the comments!  we are freaking out over here!

a quick pizza story

i had to travel last week, so i haven't been able to compose a post about our fantastic Father's Day at the Bronx Zoo!  i just got this email from alex, though, and i wanted to share:

We were eating pizza. Penny asked me, "Do you want to hear the story of the pizza?" I said, "Of course!" so here's what she said:

Once upon a time, there was a pizza.

It was really angry.

The pizza said, "No, no, no!"

But I said, "Yes, yes, yes!"

And then the pizza said, "Okay, let's be friends."

The end.

Later, when I asked her to tell it again, she added this to the end:

Then an apple came. It said, "La, la, la."

Then Penny ate the apple. She said, "Yum!"

busy weekend...we may have done too much.

alex was busy this weekend, so i had penny all to myself.  since this is a rare treat for me, i guess i overdid it a little maybe and exhausted myself.  but it was all fun!  and i got some photos!

on saturday, penny and i ran into her friend andie and family at the playground.  andie has a two week old baby sister, so i invited all of them over to our place for a change of scenery.  penny and andie had a great time, and i hope andie's mom got a little bit of a break.  after penny's nap, we headed over to our friends' apartment for a race-day bbq.  penny used their toilet (awesome) and was terrorized by dogs (not awesome).  there were three friendly dogs at the party, and it was too much for penny.  just as she was beginning to warm up to them, one of them ran up to her out of nowhere, put his paws on her chest and took a bite out of the cookie she was holding.  before she could process what had happened, he jumped up and took another bite.  she and the dog were both totally fine, but she totally lost it and was inconsolable for a while.  once we replaced her cookie, things got a lot better.  we had a good time watching the race, though penny is still baffled by commercial tv.

on sunday penny told me that she wanted to go to the "other playground".  we packed up the diaper bag and headed to harmony. we weren't even halfway up the block when i noticed one of andie's shoes!  apparently she had lost it the night before!  quite an auspicious beginning to the day.

we stopped by these hydrangeas to capture penny's favorite color.  i'll give you three guesses. 

i had noticed on our way into the park that it was the carousel's 100th birthday, and there was going to be a celebration starting at noon.  since it was only 10:45 as we were leaving harmony, i figured we could spend a little time at the zoo first.  there was some construction in one of the tunnels, so i took an alternate route, which landed us at this playground.  we stayed for a while, penny ran around and climbed on all of the equipment, and kept running back to tell me "i've never been to this playground before!"  it wasn't until we actually got to the zoo that i asked her whether she wanted to go.  this is a parenting trick that you may use - it helps if you tend to get lost and don't want to disappoint your child with your inability to find a zoo.
we had a super great time!

we spent a fun hour an a half at the zoo!  penny loves the animals, and the baboons were all up front and center so she got a great look at them.  by the time we left the zoo, the carousel party had started, so we got our (free) tickets, and got in line.  as it turned out, they were cutting off the tickets two people behind us, so our timing was perfect!  we had a fun ride - penny chose a horse that went up and down, and i stood next to it for her first solo ride!  after that, we made a quick stop at a picnic, but penny was really done by that point.
she fell asleep in the stroller, and i ran a couple of errands.  we took a trip to the animal playground in the afternoon, but the sky got really dark really fast, so we headed home pretty quick.
penny decided to have a picnic dinner!

i may have given myself heatstroke pushing that stroller around all day in the heat, but i had such a fun time with penny.  girlfriend is fun to be around and funny and charming, and just as sweaty as i am.  we sang songs and cracked jokes, we watched dogs swimming in the dog pond, ate animal crackers, detected nature with her magnifying glass...i am having so much fun with this person!